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Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, on Tuesday fired off a letter to the NSF’s inspector general requesting all documents related to the “numerous reports” and seven investigations into “Abuse of NSF IT Resources” cited in the foundation’s 68-page semiannual report
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Chuck Grassley knows it when he sees it.

The “it,” of course, is pornography. And Grassley has seen it deep in a demurely titled section of a report from the National Science Foundation — a report that says NSF employees have been spending significant amounts of company time on smut sites and in other explicit pursuits.

Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, on Tuesday fired off a letter to the NSF’s inspector general requesting all documents related to the “numerous reports” and seven investigations into “Abuse of NSF IT Resources” cited in the foundation’s 68-page semiannual report.

Despite the less-than-lurid sound of the probes, the employees in question weren’t just logging onto their Facebook accounts or buying birthday gifts on Amazon.com. The report says they were watching, downloading and e-mailing porn, sometimes for significant portions of their workdays, and over periods of months or even years.

In one particularly egregious case, the report says one NSF “senior official” was discovered to have spent as much as 20 percent of his working hours over a two-year interval “viewing sexually explicit images and engaging in sexually explicit online ‘chats’ with various women.”

Investigators calculated the value of the time lost at more than $58,000 — for that employee alone.

Following an initial wave of incidents, the grant-making agency — which has an annual budget of $6.06 billion, and was created by Congress in 1950 to promote the progress of science; advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; secure the national defense — reveals that probers then “selectively sampled” a single internal server and found even more workers harboring everything from software that can allow users to set up camera-to-camera connections to hard-core images and titillatingly titled bookmarks.

Committee investigators also learned from sources that one employee even had camera-to-camera software to facilitate his on-the-job sexcapades – and that the employee had complained to the IT specialist that his camera was working too slowly.

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The foundation has since installed filtering software to prevent employees from accessing inappropriate websites and is currently trying to address the fallout from the agency’s adult-entertainment problem. This includes finding ways to support staffers who were “acutely embarrassed” by the filth-filled environment — like the employee who learned of a co-worker’s adventures in porn via sounds overheard from said co-worker’s computer speakers.

Grassley’s office has asked the foundation to turn over all “specific reports of investigations, audit reports, evaluations and information supporting the examination of the NSF network drive” by Thursday in an effort to “ensure that NSF properly fulfills its mission to strengthen scientific and engineering research, and makes responsible use of the public funding provided for these research disciplines.”

“The semiannual report raises real questions about how the National Science Foundation manages its resources, and Congress ought to demand a full accounting before it gives the agency another $3 billion in the stimulus bill,” Grassley said.

An NSF spokeswoman said the agency had no comment on the report or its content.

Readers' Comments (109)

Uh-oh, spaghettios. This is way worse than your mom finding your mag stash under your bed when you're 13. BTW, everyone on the interwebs should assume that Big Brother or Big Chuck is watching you. Particularly at work. You'd think smartypants scientists would know that already.

I'm glad he found something to keep his time occupied while the whole world falls apart. This is definitely symbolistic of the irrelevancy of many politicians in the Republican party. They still don't realize they're living in 2009 and not 1994.

I wonder how many of these porn watchers are the same ones singing on to all the global warming nonsense. Perhaps we could get some expert or other to testify that spending too much time watching/viewing porn reduces your IQ. Then we could find the correlation between NSF AGW believers and the workday pervs. Then we would have a correlation that suggests that AGW supporters are ...

... On another tack, perhaps this is a place to cut some government waste. ... Should do it with every government department, and at the UN.

Decider speaks like a true communist. "Whether we work or play, we get our pay." Those of us who pay taxes expect those who live off our taxes to work. We do not expect them to get paid to play on porn sites. That we expect regardless of the year.

".....I'm glad he found something to keep his time occupied while the whole world falls apart. This is definitely symbolistic of the irrelevancy of many politicians in the Republican party. They still don't realize they're living in 2009 and not 1994...."

"Investigators calculated the value of the time lost at more than $58,000 ? for that employee alone."

This is what you are defending? Try that crap at real job. Frankly, the majority of "federal employees" I have dealt with though the years would have a hard go of it in the private sector. These folks should be fired. This is no different than stealing cash.

Secondly, the federal and state governments should be shedding jobs. There are bloated bureaucracies at every level. Cut the damn waste, fraud, and duplication of services.

Try to use you head instead of instinctively reaching for the same old knee jerk reactions.

Senator Grassely. Aren't you a powerful person in banking the new porn industry if you ask me. I guess its easier to yell about porn, rather than banking, support to farmers or people losing their homes and jobs. Don't worry Chuck, soon people won't have money to buy porn and the problem will be solved.

May I also add that it appears that the NSF is over staffed. If they have so little work that so much of their time can be spent on porn sites, it appears that we can save some money by reducing the number of people employed there.

"Big Brother" comments are unwarranted in this instance. We paid these peoples salary with ours. "We" bought these computers. We aren't looking at "their" computers on "their" time!!! You're right when we ought to be working on more important things. Many of these people from NSA do. They are robbing all of us, and stealing from those important projects.

When you've got the power to go to the poor, ignorant taxpayer, bend that taxpayer over and take from that taxpayer whatever you want, then you can go back to your office and spend the rest of the day watching people get bent over in other ways. Pretty good deal. Oh, before I forget it, be sure and get the next round of "stimulus" payments cued up so nobody over at NFS is inconvenienced.

Don't worry Chuck, soon people won't have money to buy porn and the problem will be solved.

This is probably the most ignorant thing I have seen today, but it's early.

Any one that knows how to use a computer (not people that "have" a computer), and enjoys viewing pornography knows very well that one does not ever have to pay to see naked people. Never.

Then there is the work thing...Planet Bob has it exactly correct, it is, in fact, our money they are wasting. Put filters on all government computers (ours), or anyone that gets government (our) money, and fire everyone that can't wait till their shift is over.

I enjoy porn, but I also enjoy common sense. I also assume that everything I do at work is being monitored (cause it is and they told us very clearly).

Act like someone is watching you (at work), and you will most likely have a great day (relative).

I also think people getting fired for looking at porn at work is kind of like thinning the heard. A survival of the fittest type of thing...you know.

thats why our country is in trouble. idiots wasting our money on porn. good for the republican for going after this trash. they are prolly a bunch of democrat voters also, thinking they somehow deserve this job and free porn...

We make software that provides visibility into what happens on the network. The amount of chicanery, especially on networks where the users feel like they can do whatever they want, is usually troubling. I'm sure the government networks are RIFE with porn, crude jokes and misogynist commentary. It is, afterall, the fat rich white male club.

One week and the Obama team is already looking at porn! Oh, I see it was going on during the GOP/Bush (un)administration. Those God fearing righties are always good for a laugh, if they weren't so pathetic and hypocritical.

Prediction: More loud-mouthed "Good Christian" conservative Republican type employees of NSA will be found to have been visiting porno sites than those of other political or religious persuasions. And, yes, they should be dismissed.

They can check out porn on their own time. God knows I love it, but I don't want to pay someone to look at it with my tax dollars. Chuck is right on. This has nothing to do with party politics, ya morons.